But Courtney, who wore a suit and tie to the event, came away with a fond impression of the Cougars fan base that gathered at Freeport Eagles Club.

“The other places that I’ve been, you don’t get to do this,” Courtney said. “There’s tremendous support with more than 100 people here tonight. It’s really exciting.

“I’m so excited to be here and this is my first ‘meet the coach’ and it was a fantastic event.”

Courtney was just as excited to be there as he was to talk about some of the players coming to play for the Cougars this winter. DJ Tolliver and Tre Burnette are returning to the Cougars, but as many as 11 new players are listed on the roster handed out to Cougars fans that attended Thursday’s event.

“We have some guys coming back including DJ Tolliver, who is probably the best player coming back in the conference,” Courtney said. “Tre Burnette was here and we have a couple of transfers coming in.”

The tallest transfer coming to Highland is 6-foot-9 Patrick Onwenu.

“He was a transfer from Texas Southern University who had NBA GMs (general managers) calling their coaching staff,” Courtney said. “He’s 6-9 but he’s a guard.”

Courtney also noted a player coming to the Cougars with NBA ties.

“Tre Oliver is the younger brother of Andray Blatche that (played) with the Washington Wizards,” Courtney said. “At 6-7, 225 (pounds), he can play.”

Onwenu is from Detroit, while Oliver is from Syracuse, New York. As many as six players on the team are from the East Coast, including Jeff Amazan (Boston), Deon Andrews (Clinton, Maryland), Julian Davis (Baltimore), Lance Rivera (North Plainfield, NJ) and Ian Matthews (Staten Island, NY).

“I’ve had a few comments about how we’ve got a few East Coast guys,” Courtney said during his speech Thursday. “That’s primarily because a lot of my contacts, because I got the job title late during the recruiting wars, a lot of their players from Chicago, St. Louis and Milwaukee were already taken.

“So luckily I had enough guys from the east and out south.”

Courtney said he is still recruiting and is looking out for more height to add to the roster. However, he doesn’t want to compromise his up-tempo offense or tough defense in the process.

“The problem is that I know more bad players that are over 6-7 than I know good players,” Courtney said. “So if you’re not 6-7, 6-8 and you can actually run and jump and help us and score inside, we’re better off playing a 6-5 guy that can outrun his man than score inside.

Page 2 of 2 - “We’re better playing a 6-5 guy that can scramble and run and jump and mix up defenses and be as potent a defensive team just as much as the offensive side.”